‘I don’t believe a word of it,’ Jay was saying.
‘I beg your pardon?’ She sipped champagne cautiously and looked at him over the glass.
‘He’d never sell my house.’ And then, aware of her amazed expression. ‘You mean you’ve not heard? He’s not even told you?’
‘Mr. Scarbrough?’ What an extraordinary moment to have chosen.
‘No!’ Explosively. ‘If it was only that, I’d understand. No, madam, not Mr. Scarbrough, Mr. Purchis. I am informed on the very best authority that your husband is putting your town house up for sale. My masterpiece. Designed from my heart!’ A languishing glance told her why. ‘This is nothing — a showpiece. But your house, Oglethorpe Square! I’ll never do anything to touch it. How could I?’ Another languishing glance.
This was getting to be too much. ‘Tell me, Mr. Jay,’ she made her voice ice-cool, ‘Who was your “best authority”?’
‘Why, Mrs. Broughton. Your husband danced the first dance with her, you know.’
‘Yes, so he did. And there, by happy chance, she is. Forgive me, Mr. Jay, if I consult the “authority”?’ For once she was grateful for the awkward custom of buffet suppers as she bore down upon Mrs. Broughton, who had settled herself comfortably at a small table, two of her three daughters in attendance. ‘May I join you?’ Juliet took assent for granted and settled herself, straight-backed, on a stool in the corner beside Mrs. Broughton. ‘Mr. Jay has just been telling me the most amazing tale,’ she went on affably.
‘Oh!’ Mrs. Broughton actually looked frightened. ‘My dears,’ to her daughters. ‘I am sure Mrs. Purchis and I would trust you to choose our dessert for us.’
‘Yes, indeeed.’ Juliet had absent-mindedly cleared the loaded plate. ‘And if there is any truth in this story Mr. Jay has been telling me, I believe I shall need another glass of champagne. Thank you, Lucinda, my dear.’ What a mercy to have remembered the name of the youngest plain Miss Broughton.
‘My dearest creature,’ Mrs. Broughton leaned forward eagerly as her daughters began to push their way through the crowd towards the loaded buffet tables. ‘You cannot mean that Mr. Purchis has not told you?’
‘Told me what?’
‘That he is putting the house in Oglethorpe Square up for sale. La, my dear, what creatures these men are for sure, but if you ask me, that is beyond enough. I’d make him smart for it, if I were you. And with a tale, too, of “extravagance”, if you please. Why!’ Even in these circumstances, her sympathetic glance was almost beyond bearing. ‘If I’ve seen you wear that dress once, I’ve seen it six times. And very becoming it is too,’ she added hurriedly. ‘But, I ask you! Extravagance! We were saying, only the other day, my dear girls and I, what a model you had become. And after all —’ a very knowing look — ‘the sapphires were quite your own, were they not? But, my dear —’ she leaned closer, so that Juliet could smell the peppermint on her breath, ‘is it really true that he is closing out your account at the Planters’ Bank? I tell you, I never heard anything so Gothic in my life. And taking you to rusticate at Winchelsea as soon as the President is gone. Though, mind you,’ fairly, ‘if the house is to be sold, I’d think you’d prefer not to be there to see it go.’
‘You’re right there!’ It was true enough. She surged to her feet. ‘And here, in happy hour, is my husband. Mr. Purchis,’ she made her voice shrill, ‘Mrs. Broughton has been telling me the most amazing tale.’
‘Amazing, perhaps.’ Hyde smiled down at her. ‘But true.’
‘You’re selling my house? The house Mr. Jay designed for me. For me.’ She underlined it. ‘And without a word to me?’ She had actually almost convinced herself that she was in a rage with him. After all, he might have warned her.
‘Well, my dear.’ Hyde’s expression was a triumph of uxorious apology. ‘I did not wish to distress you before the party, but you must see, with our expenses.’ An expressive glance took Mrs. Broughton into the secret of those expenses. ‘We must cut our coat according to our cloth,’ he added helpfully.
‘And the servants! In Oglethorpe Square! What will happen to them?’ This was not a question Josephine would ask, but she could not help herself. He had taken her, indeed, by surprise.
‘Who knows? They have their freedom, after all; what more can they ask?’
‘I do agree with you, Mr. Purchis,’ Mrs. Broughton’s voice was honeyed. ‘I’m delighted to hear you have realised, at last, that there is a limit to what one can do for those creatures.’
‘Oh!’ Juliet was on her feet in a rush. ‘I’ll not stand it. My servants. That I’ve trained so they understand how we do things in France. And you’ll let them go — just like that?’
‘Well,’ said Hyde reasonably, ‘since we cannot afford to keep them.’
‘You’re intolerable. No, thank you, Priscilla. No dessert. But I’ll have this.’ She almost snatched the glass of champagne, and swept, holding it, clear across the room to where Judge James was holding court in the centre of a little group of ladies.
***
‘I must say, Hyde —’ They were safe away at last, driving home through the warm darkness. ‘You might have warned me!’
‘About the house? I’m sorry, though mind you it made a much more convincing scene of it. And, besides, I’d hoped, until we got to Scarbrough’s, that it would not be necessary. But while you were telling the President your cock and bull story about true-blue Scotsmen, Scarbrough was asking me for a loan. I only hope I can let him have enough. You won’t mind, too much, being confined to Winchelsea for a while?’
‘You know I’ll love it. But, Hyde, the servants —’
He pressed her hand. ‘I knew you’d rise to that one. You should have seen your splendid look of indignation. Josephine herself could not have done it better. Of course we’ll take care of the servants, love. Besides, when the crisis is past, we will undoubtedly buy ourselves another town house, but something smaller, don’t you think, and a trifle less pretentious? I always felt —’ he looked up at the looming shadow of their house as he helped her to alight from the carriage — ‘that this one was more Josephine’s than mine. Besides,’ his hand was warm on her arm, ‘I have my eye on a double lot, a little further out of town, where there will be more room for the children to play.’
‘The? Hyde!’ But Moses was holding open the big front door. There was no time for anything more. Suddenly, she found herself grateful for the friendly throng of servants waiting up for them, and, best of all, Alice and Anne at the head of the stairs, waiting to help her out of her ball gown. ‘What an exhausting evening,’ she smiled, a little tremulously up at Hyde. ‘I’m worn to the bone.’
‘And no wonder.’ And then, for her alone as they mounted the curving stair, ‘No need to look so frightened, love. If I’ve waited four years for you, since I met Josephine, I can wait four more days.’
‘Four?’
‘It’s all fixed.’ He paused at the door of her boudoir, and Anne and Alice tactfully withdrew to the further room. ‘I talked to Mr. Kollock, the minister, this evening. The New Independent Presbyterian Church is to be dedicated on Sunday, you know, with Monroe and all the bigwigs there. It’s not finished, of course, but you won’t mind that, will you? We’re to stay on, after the congregation leaves. Judge James will give you to me. You’ll forgive me for not consulting you, but there was no time. I’m afraid you’ll have an odd enough honeymoon of it, my poor love, with all the junketings for the President. I don’t see how we can get out of the ball in Mr. Jay’s pavilion, still less the trip to Tybee on the Savannah. But the minute he leaves for Augusta, we’ll be off to Winchelsea.’
‘And Aunt Abigail?’
‘Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it. For the moment, you’re tired out, and tomorrow is another long day.’ He laughed. ‘I have to close your account at the Planters’ Bank, remember. I got the necessary signatures from Josephine before she left. We’ll not be on speaking terms, tomorrow, you and I. First I close your bank account, the
n I carry you off, neck and crop, to Winchelsea and sell your town house over your head. What a brute I am, to be sure.’
‘Aren’t you just.’
He bent and kissed her, swift and hard, on the lips. ‘Good night, love. We’d best quarrel, I think, and keep apart. Sunday seems a thousand years off to me.’
‘Ma’am.’ Anne was waiting to put the emeralds away in their box. ‘There’s something Alice and I were wondering about.’
‘Yes? What now.’
‘Your name, ma’am. You surely won’t want to go on being called Josephine for ever?’
‘Oh dear,’ she put an exhausted hand to her brow. ‘How could I be so stupid? And what in the world will we do?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Alice robustly, beginning to unfasten the green dress. ‘But I’m sure as Sunday Mr. Hyde will think of something.’
‘Sunday!’ said Juliet.
She slept the clock round and was eating a belated breakfast in bed when Hyde tapped on her door. How strange it was. She had inured herself, over the last months, to their travesty of married life. Now, as if this was the first time, she felt the uncontrollable tide of colour flush her cheeks as he bent to kiss her, lightly, good morning. ‘You feel it too,’ he smiled down at her. ‘Strange, is it not?’
‘Darby and Joan,’ she managed.
‘Well, not precisely. Lord, I nearly frightened you away that time, did I not?’
‘Yes, I should have gone. Thank God I didn’t.’
‘Thank God indeed. But I’d have found you, somehow, once I knew I was free. And, talking of Josephine, there’s news of her this morning. Or rather of her faithful crew of Frenchmen.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes. It seems they got tired of waiting for her, and cut up a rumpus in Charleston. Half of them are safely lodged in the town gaol, and the rest have run for it. And of course they’re all talking nineteen to the dozen, naming her.’
‘As Madame de Joinville?’
‘Not a bit of it,’ cheerfully. ‘As Mrs. Purchis. Poor Josephine, I was afraid she would not make much of a conspirator. Isn’t it a fortunate thing she has that capable husband to look after her now?’
‘Yes, but Hyde, you mean —’
‘You’re in more disgrace than ever today, love. We’re going to have to throw ourselves on the President’s mercy, I think. Isn’t it a fortunate thing he’s right here in town?’
‘But, Hyde a—’
‘Don’t look so frightened, my darling. It’s not so bad as all that. After all, nothing has come of it. I’ve already seen Mr. Calhoun and explained the whole thing to him — how I discovered what you were doing just yesterday — That was really why we were late for Mr. Scarbrough’s party. I had already taken steps to buy in the Liberty and close your bank account. The sapphires, of course, you had given to that rascally crew of Frenchmen and we’ll see no more of them —’
‘But Mr. Scarbrough —’
‘I’ve had a word with him, too. And I’ve done something else. I hope you won’t mind it. I’ve announced that you are indisposed. You can see no one, go to none of the parties. In fact, I am being a brute of a husband and keeping you immured here, in disgrace.’
‘Oh, bless you, Hyde. You think of everything. You mean I really don’t have to see anyone, or tell any lies, all day?’
‘My poor darling, not even a tiny one. You are free till Sunday, when you will meet Mr. Monroe at the consecration ceremony, shed a guilty tear, if you can manage it, and be forgiven. Oh, and by the way, I am so furious with you, I am telling everyone that in future I intend to cut your entire connection with those Bonapartes. I won’t even call you “Josephine” but Juliet, instead, after my own mother.’
‘Hyde! Was she?’
‘Did you not know? And hers before her. And our daughter, next spring.’
‘Really, Hyde!’ Colouring more deeply than ever, she pushed ineffectively at the breakfast tray.
‘Really, Juliet,’ he picked it up. ‘Must we, seriously wait for Sunday?’
Acknowledgment
IT IS hard to know where to begin my thanks to all the Savannah friends who helped me with this book. But I think I should start, as the book did, in Mrs. A. J. Waring, Jr.’s library of Savanniana, where she bravely let me loose, and even allowed trans-Atlantic borrowing. Mrs. Lila M. Hawes of the Georgia Historical Society was kindness itself throughout, and actually had the painters’ dust-sheets removed from her library so that my sister (to whom I am also indebted) could check a point for me. Mrs. Prior of the South Carolina Historical Society helped me, at short notice, with a wealth of information from their magazine, and Mrs. Nancy Stevenson took time out from her own writing to show me over her splendid ‘Charleston Single’ house.
Miss Beth Lattimore of Historic Savannah took me round the wreck of the Scarborough house by torchlight. It is good to know that this beautiful house, where President Monroe stayed, is now in process of restoration, through the good offices of Historic Savannah, many of whose members showed me round their fine old houses and those of their friends. Judge Alexander A. Lawrence generously took time off from his more serious affairs to help me over a series of problems that stuck me, here in England.
As to books, Savannah and I have been lucky in her historians, and I was particularly fortunate in having Miss Isabelle Harrison of the Little House Bookshop to guide me among them. Anchored Yesterdays by Mrs. Craig Barrow and Mrs. Malcolm Bell proved an historical novelist’s goldmine, and so were Malcolm Bell, Jr.’s Savannah Ahoy! and Walter C. Hartridge’s edition of the Mackay Letters. Mr. E. Merton Coulter’s two books, Wormsloe and Georgia, A Short History, were invaluable, while Mrs. Sieg kindly lent me her own copy of her article on the Jewish graveyard from the Savannah Morning News Magazine.
But this is becoming a mountain of bibliography for a poor ha’porth of historical novel. I will spare you the rest, but must add, in case it should need saying, that Winchelsea is not Wormsloe, though I hope it may constitute some kind of inadequate tribute to the civilisation preserved there. And, finally, if by mischance I have happened to use, or misuse, any family name, I can only humbly apologise and say it was by accident, not design.
JANE AIKEN HODGE
If you enjoyed All for Love you might be interested in Runaway Bride by Jane Aiken Hodge, also published by Endeavour Press.
Extract from Runaway Bride by Jane Aiken Hodge
CHAPTER I
‘Mark my words, George, you must marry—and quickly.’ The Duchess hitched up her auburn wig which had, as usual, slid down over one bejewelled ear.
‘I fear you are right, ma’am,’ said her grandson gloomily as he bent down to offer her his enamelled snuff-box. The Honourable George Ferris—or, to give him his baptismal due, George Frederick William Edward Ernest Augustus Adolphus Ferris—was having a bad half-hour with his grandmother. According to his friends at Brooks’ Club there were only two people in the world that this formidable young man feared: one was the Duke of Wellington, the other, the Duchess of Lewes. Friend of Dr Johnson and confidante of Fox, she was indeed a grandmother to make a man tremble, particularly as he himself was set on a political career. It was she, of course, who had insisted on his being named after all the deplorable Royal Dukes, sons of George III, and had browbeaten them into resolving their differences for long enough to stand godfathers together at his christening. It was not, as she frequently pointed out, her fault that his royal godfathers had in fact done so little to advance his career.
The younger son of a duke’s spendthrift heir, George Ferris had his own way to make in the world. While his older brother made the Grand Tour as best he might in the intervals of the long war with France, George had been given his father’s unenthusiastic blessing, a small and spasmodic allowance, and introductions to Beau Brummell and Brooks’ Club. Luckily for him, his erratic old grandfather the Duke had finally gone mad in Trafalgar year and the Duchess had lost no time in immuring her husband in one of his smaller and more remote castles
and taking control of his fortune. One of her first actions had been to buy a commission in the Blues for George, whom she much preferred to his dissolute elder brother.
George had thanked her warmly, packed his few possessions and joined his regiment in the Peninsula. Handsome in a blue-eyed, black-browed, frowning way; short-tempered, daredevil, a judge of horses and men, he had soon made his mark in the field and had been rebuked by the Duke himself for putting up his umbrella to keep off the rain while waiting to charge at Salamanca. Once noticed, he was not easily forgotten. Soon afterwards, he was taken on to the Duke’s staff where he distinguished himself by capturing an Eagle in the intervals of carrying despatches at Waterloo.
With peace at last secure, the army’s attractions had dwindled. He had sold out and persuaded his father to send him to Parliament as member for the family’s pocket borough of Cuckhaven. Once admitted to the House he had delighted that staunch old Whig his grandmother by the point and ferocity of his attacks on the Government, and was already being talked of as a rival to the colourless Ponsonby for the leadership of the Party.
‘But depend upon it, George,’ continued his astute grandmamma, taking a pinch of snuff and sneezing with gusto, ‘Bachelor’s chambers are a damned awkward rallying ground for a coterie. A political leader must have a house, and a house must have a mistress. With the right wife, you can put them all in the shade. Marry now, marry well and, above all, marry richly and who knows where you may find yourself when the King finally dies and Prinny’s friends come into their own at last. There’s not a leader among them: Ponsonby, Tierney...bah, you’re worth six of them. But marry, George, only marry...’
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